


the face of god

by mornen



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Anatomical Differences, Blasphemy, Character Study, Elrond is married, Fictional Religion & Theology, Friendship/Love, Gentle, Gentle Kissing, Gentle Sex, Hair-pulling, Healers, Healing, Hope, Immortals, Kissing, Like a little, Love, Martyr Syndrome, Maybe - Freeform, Mortals, Oral Sex, Other, Philosophy, Pillow Talk, Pre-Quest, Rivendell, Rivendell | Imladris, Secrets, The Nauglamir, Theology, Worship, broken souls, but it's okay his wife wouldn't mind, elrond and frodo have a lot in common, fool's hope, friendship sex, hand kissing, talk of death, talk of god, what do you want from life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:27:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27424228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen
Summary: Elrond slid off his dress, which Frodo hadn’t expected. He wore a black sleeveless shirt beneath it. It was silk. There was a chain around his neck, but the pendant was beneath the neckline of his shirt. He took the Nauglamír and placed it around his pale throat. He glanced at his reflection and then looked away.‘Oh,’ Frodo said, trying to find words to say that fit the feeling which flooded him. Elrond stared back at him, with the Nauglamír tight about his neck, with his arms bare, with his hair pooling black on the floor around him, with the moon on his skin. ‘Elrond,’ Frodo said, and that came out as a single breath. ‘I just want to worship you.’Elrond’s eyes were grey twilight in the night. They carried stars.‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Please. I'd rather you love me.’
Relationships: Frodo Baggins/Elrond Peredhel
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	the face of god

'Do you want to know a secret?'

Frodo looked up from the book of history he had been studying. It was hard work, translating it, and the story was sad. Elrond stood in the doorway of Frodo’s room. He twisted his hair around his fingers, making knots in it.

‘Yes?’ he said, though he had not expected Elrond, nor that question.

'Come with me.' Elrond held out a hand. Frodo took it and followed him. Elrond led him up many stairs. They passed windows. It was a bright night of a waning moon and many stars. Elrond led him up stairs with no windows, where the only light was the one candle he carried, and the stars that danced around his head, held there with a magic that Frodo did not know. Rivendell was full of secrets, but Frodo could not guess at what secret he would find when he reached where they were going.

They were going high up, and it was night. Perhaps Elrond was taking him to view the stars. Maybe he could tell the future from them. It was a good guess, Frodo thought, when Elrond opened the door onto a warm room of dark, deep colours and filled with telescopes, star maps, maps, and books. They were high along the side of the valley, looking above the cliffs, but hidden still against the rock. There were windows, but all but one was covered by plates of metal. The ceiling was metal, but it could be moved. One wall was rock.

Frodo watched Elrond’s face, but he couldn’t make out what he was thinking.

‘What is the secret?’ he asked, not daring at his own guess. He did not know if he wanted to know the future. It seemed dark and with no good promises.

Elrond didn’t answer but knelt on the floor and moved aside a heavy chest. It dragged on the floor.

‘No one comes here,’ Elrond said. He opened the floor, prying up a board and then another. He lifted boxes up out of it and stacked them together against the chest. The hole in the floor was deep. It reached into the cliff. ‘It’s on the bottom,’ Elrond said. ‘Sorry.’

'No, it's all right,' Frodo said.

'You can sit.'

Frodo sat on the floor on the other side of the opening. Elrond reached down, almost to his shoulder, and pulled out of a box of carved wood. He rested it on his knees and then opened it without any ceremony.

'The Nauglamír,' Elrond said, lifting off a velvet covering. ‘It’s said to be lost.’ Elrond turned the box so that Frodo could see inside of it. A necklace rested on black velvet. It was set with more stones than Frodo had seen in his life, it seemed, but there was an empty spot at the centre, through which he could see the black velvet. It was like looking at a reverse of the night sky – all stars with only specks of black and a black moon with no light.

‘Oh,’ Frodo said, and he could say no more.

'Would you like to try it on?' Elrond said. He was already lifting it out of the box, holding it out. It glittered in the candlelight, in the moonlight. ‘I kept it,’ Elrond said, ‘all this time. I’d like to see it on you.’

'I-I suppose,' Frodo said, because he could not refuse, but it was too much to think of to wear it. But already Elrond had leaned forward, his black hair falling in a curtain across his face, and was settling the necklace around Frodo’s neck. It shifted to fit him, clasped itself.

'It was made for Finrod,' Elrond said. 'Galadriel's brother.'

Frodo nodded.

'I suppose I should give it to her,' Elrond said. 'But I haven't. And she doesn't know I have it.' His eyes were distant now. 'It was made by the dwarf lords of old. My mother had it. And I took it. A very, very long time ago.’ Elrond drew himself back to the present and smiled. ‘It looks well on you.’ He moved Frodo towards a mirror that was against the back wall. ‘See.’

Frodo touched it. It did not suit him, he thought, but he would not say that. He had nothing to say.

'You're beautiful,' Elrond said.

Frodo could not bring himself to reply to that, not even a ‘thank you.’ Elrond was too beautiful to think him beautiful.

'I want to see it on you,' Frodo said, because he needed to say something, and he did want to say it, so he said it quickly, without any courtesy.

'All right.'

Frodo reached to unclasp the necklace. It came off easily as he wished to remove it. For it had no weight, but still it seemed that the history was dragging him down.

Elrond slid off his dress, which Frodo hadn’t expected. He wore a black sleeveless shirt beneath it. It was silk. There was a chain around his neck, but the pendant was beneath the neckline of his shirt. He took the Nauglamír and placed it around his pale throat. He glanced at his reflection and then looked away.

‘Oh,’ Frodo said, trying to find words to say that fit the feeling which flooded him. Elrond stared back at him, with the Nauglamír tight about his neck, with his arms bare, with his hair pooling black on the floor around him, with the moon on his skin. ‘Elrond,’ Frodo said, and that came out as a single breath. ‘I just want to worship you.’

Elrond’s eyes were grey twilight in the night. They carried stars.

‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Please. I'd rather you love me.’

Frodo smiled at him, though he felt like he was in a dream, and none of it was real. But still, Elrond seemed too beautiful to have stepped from a dream he had devised on his own, he was more beautiful than he had ever dreamt.

'Love you,’ Frodo asked, ‘In what way?'

'In any way you want.'

Frodo swallowed. They were very high up, and the moon seemed like it was just outside the window, ready to be touched, in every way reachable.

‘Oh,’ Frodo said.

'I meant it to sound that way.' Elrond stared back at him, and his eyes were kind, and he was so close.

Frodo felt his face burn. He tried to stammer out anything, but he couldn’t make a sound. He imagined standing up and touching the softness of Elrond’s dark hair, or the strength of his arm. He imagined standing and opening the window and catching hold of the moon or a handful of stars.

Elrond took Frodo’s hand and bent and kissed it, warm and light. Frodo drew a breath in and held it. Elrond let go of his hand and reached up to take off the Nauglamír. He laid it in its case and covered it again. The room grew darker, as if light itself had been coming from the stones. Frodo sat very still.

‘Would that you would not worship me,’ Elrond said softly. ‘I am no god, and all I know of wisdom comes from pain. I took that necklace as a child because it was pretty, and my mother had already taken out The Stone to set in the middle of our camp, to save us.’ A sad smile crossed his face. ‘It did not.’ He shut the box and placed it deep into the cliff again. He took Frodo’s hand again.

Frodo held it, but he could not find words. The man, the elf, with hair like night, with eyes of silver, who sometimes wept in the dreams he had of the coming wave, the towering sea, sat across from him in a moonlit room, more beautiful than he had ever dreamed. He kissed Elrond’s hand. He’d never kissed anyone’s hand before, like one would kiss a king or queen.

‘Do you worship me?’ Elrond whispered. ‘Or do you love me? Or is it neither, and my heart has tricked me?’ He leaned forward, and the necklace slipped out from beneath his shirt. It was a golden star with deep red rubies. It rested against the black of his shirt. The silver chain gleamed against his throat.

‘Your necklace is beautiful,’ Frodo said. ‘The one you wear.’

'Thank you.' Elrond turned it between his fingers. 'It's very old. Ancient, really. Older than the Nauglamír, though not as old as some of the stones found in it. It was a gift from my captors.'

Frodo looked out the window at the moon. It was close. But now Elrond felt far away. He was ancient too. And Frodo could not imagine being raised by his kidnappers, nor what it was like to watch so many years pass. He felt young and foolish. He would never know Elrond, no matter how much time he spent with him, because there was too much to know, and he had not the time to learn it.

‘What are you thinking, my dear?’ Elrond said.

‘I don’t know what you want from me,’ Frodo said. He looked into Elrond’s eyes. Their colour had changed in the light when Elrond had moved closer. They were not so silver now, but still there were stars in them, still stars around his head. The air smelt old, like many hidden things were kept locked away here, and they were of metal and of paper and of leather and of pain.

‘Are you tired?’ Elrond asked.

‘I’m not.’

Elrond cradled Frodo’s cheek in his hand. His fingers were warm, and heat rushed again to Frodo’s face.

‘If you could do anything,’ Elrond started, but Frodo reached out before he could finish and grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled him down and kissed him above the missing floorboards, on the face of the cliff, with the waning moon watching them through the one showing window.

The candle blew out.

Elrond kissed him back. His lips were soft, but there a slight tremor to the kiss. Elrond placed his other hand on Frodo’s arm. Elrond smiled against Frodo’s lips. He kissed him again, slowly this time. Frodo loosened his grasp on his hair.

He was cold, he noticed now. He hadn’t been thinking of it, hadn’t been thinking of anything but Elrond and secrets and the way the wind sounded outside. They were high up. They were still kissing. The floor below them was open, and it was cold. There were boxes filled with things hidden, things kept, all of them secrets.

‘You can be very commanding,’ Elrond said.

‘I had to be,’ Frodo answered. ‘To deal with all my relatives and busybodies, all coming to ask about the riches hidden in the tunnels.’

‘But you had none.’

‘No, but you do.’

‘No one can fight for them if they’re hidden.’

‘I suppose not.’

Elrond let go of Frodo, and felt the cold much stronger now, for Elrond was warmth itself when he was close. Frodo shivered.

‘I’ll put the secrets away,’ Elrond said. ‘There are too many. You don’t want to know them.’

He placed the boxes back into the cliff, back beneath the floor. He covered it again and pushed the chest, heavy on the floor, back into place.

Now there was only moonlight and the stars that Elrond had captured, but those were not secrets.

‘How many secrets do you keep?’ Frodo asked.

‘Many,’ Elrond said. ‘Too many. They are like a mountain over me, or a sea inside of me. I keep them, but not even I was made to hold so many secrets, nor to hold this much pain.’

‘Could I ease your pain?’ Frodo said. ‘Or will it hurt more when I die?’ For die I must, he left unsaid.

Elrond kissed him for an answer. He took a blanket from where it was folded upon a stack of books and spread it out on the floor in the pool of moonlight. He took off his silk shirt, and he was almost naked. Frodo let Elrond lie him on the blanket. He let Elrond kiss him. Elrond’s weight on him was a reassurance. His body was a warmth. He held Frodo’s hand in his, and their fingers laced, like they could, for one night at least, be each other’s comfort, even if they could never be each other’s salvation.

Frodo held Elrond’s hair near his scalp and then let his fingers pass through it. Elrond closed his eyes. He kissed Frodo again, soft kisses over his mouth.

‘Gandalf wouldn’t approve,’ Frodo said.

‘I don’t know what he would think,’ Elrond said. ‘But keep it a secret, if you want.’ He studied Frodo’s face. ‘My wife wouldn’t mind, if you worry.’

Frodo ran his fingers over Elrond’s face.

Elrond unlaced Frodo’s shirt. Frodo placed his hand over his chest, keeping the shirt closed.

‘I won’t take It,’ Elrond said.

‘I can’t,’ Frodo said.

‘Then I won’t.’ Elrond laced the shirt again. He kissed Frodo’s hurt shoulder through the white linen. ‘I love you.’

Frodo ran his hand down Elrond’s neck. He spread it across his chest. Elrond’s heart beat as fast as his.

‘I gave you a piece of my soul,’ Elrond whispered. ‘To heal you. Do you feel it in you? That there is a part of us that has joined.’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ Frodo slid his fingers through Elrond’s hair. ‘But I dreamt of you already, starting long ago, many times. So I cannot say.’

Elrond shifted. He placed his hand on Frodo’s knee, then drew his hand up along his thigh. Frodo did not breathe.

‘May I?’ Elrond said.

‘Yes.’

Elrond slid off Frodo’s trousers and pants. He placed them to the side, where they got lost in the shadows of the small room. Elrond kissed his hip. Frodo touched his hair, and Elrond took him into his mouth. Frodo moaned. The stars were so close. The moon was an arm’s length out the window.

Elrond slid his hand up Frodo’s body. It ran over his stomach, his ribs, over the Ring. Frodo flinched.

‘I won’t take it,’ Elrond whispered, looking up at Frodo. ‘I don’t want it.’

Frodo nodded. His throat felt dry, and he took Elrond’s hand from his chest to his mouth, and kissed each finger, front and back. He kissed the back of his hand thrice and his palm five times. He kissed his wrist but he did not count.

He felt like he couldn’t breathe, but that he no longer needed to breathe to live, or that maybe he did not need life at all anymore. The floor did not feel hard. The room was no longer cold. Elrond was gentle. Elrond listened to him as he guided him with whatever words he could manage to speak, with his hand, with the lift of his hips, the tremors of his body.

And he did love him. He loved him fiercely. He loved him gently. He loved him like spring loves the sunlight and grows alive in the longer days. He loved him like summer loves thunderstorms when the whole sky opens up with sudden rain. He loved him like autumn loves the wind that casts the dying leaves down, letting them turn into soil to grow again. He loved him like winter loves the moonlight over the pearl white of blanketing snow.

He loved him, and he worshipped him, and he didn’t need him to be a god, or to be wise, or to be anything but kind and soft and there, beneath his fingers, against his skin, his strength on top of him.

‘Elrond,’ he said, and his name was the stars that he could see when he tilted his head back and saw out the narrow window, when he closed his eyes and saw stars glittering fast against the black of his mind, and his body shuddered, and his breath stopped completely, and there was such a silence, but it was beautiful, and Elrond was still there.

It was not a dream. But still, no would ever believe him. So this could be added to the list of secrets this room held, this room against the cliff side, this room built close to the moon, this room high and alone beneath the dome of the heavens, beneath the countless stars.

Frodo drew Elrond up to kiss him. He ran his hand over his chest, his stomach. He ran it down along his hips, over his legs. There was a scar on his thigh, raised from the rest of his skin. He kissed it. He kissed the scar from the start near his knee to the end near his hip. He slid off Elrond’s silk pants and took him into his hand, and all his skin was soft, and he tasted like a river, because Frodo had no other words for it.

And he was beautiful, but not quite mortal, with a bit of soft skin high on him where a mortal man would have his testicles, and it was such a medical thought, that there were differences, that you could tell, undressed, that he was not a mortal man. Though you could tell it when he was dressed with the way he kept stars around his head.

‘Does it bother you?’ Elrond asked, as if he could read his mind.

‘No,’ Frodo answered. Nothing bothered him, not now. Not the Ring against his chest, hidden still beneath his shirt. Not the pain of the scar on his shoulder. He could shut that all out now, for these moments, here, while the moonlight moved slowly away from their blanket as the night wore slowly on.

‘Frodo,’ Elrond said. ‘I’m going to come. Frodo.’

‘Then do.’ Frodo did not move away.

Elrond came soon after, with his hand, with his hair, across his face. He whispered, ‘thank you,’ and kissed Frodo, and they were both warm, and the moon was still outside the window, and Frodo would just have to open the window, and he could step onto it.

‘I love you,’ Elrond said.

‘I love you too.’ Frodo meant it. Then and there, and before in his dreams, and he would love him many years after, if he lived that long.

Elrond’s skin was cooler now, as if the warmth had come from something inside of him, like his soul, and not from his body, and it was quieter now. Frodo wondered if he would come to regret it. He did not know why Elrond had shown him a secret in this secret place. Shown him many secrets, woven a secret with him. He said he loved him, but did he love him? Or did he love the piece of his own soul he had healed Frodo with? Frodo did not ask. He tightened the laces on his shirt.

Elrond smiled at him, but the smile was sad, like his eyes.

‘I mean it. I do not want it.’

‘I know,’ Frodo said. ‘I’m cold.’ He dressed. Elrond dressed too, pulling on his pants, slipping easily into his shirt and his dress. He ran through his hair. He looked at the mirror, watching his reflection longer now that he was not wearing the Nauglamír.

‘What do you want from life, Frodo?’ he asked softly.

‘I don’t know what life will offer me,’ Frodo answered. ‘Perhaps I can say I have already been given enough. I’ve had many beautiful days, many peaceful years. And I have known love, in many ways. Isn’t that more than enough to ask from life?’

‘You are very brave,’ Elrond said. ‘But you want something more. There is an unease in you that is asking for something more.’

Frodo took Elrond’s hand.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But you know just as well as I what it is. Perhaps more, if you can see my heart.’

Elrond kissed him. He drew him closer.

‘I don’t know what it is. But I want it too.’

The room grew dark as the moon moved beyond the narrow window, and slipped out of reach. Now there were just stars, and no pool of light on the floor, and Elrond did not light the candle. He held Frodo close. He pressed his face to Frodo’s hair.

‘I hope you find it, Frodo,’ he said. ‘Someone should find it.’

‘I don’t think anyone will,’ Frodo said. He sounded sombre, he knew, though he still felt like he could fly from the window, like he could catch a handful of stars, even if he could not reach the moon now. ‘It’s certainty of happiness, isn’t it? A need to be loved. A need to be… loved. To be loved and to love and to know that you won’t lose that love, and that’s what you’re begging for when you make wishes on dandelions and shooting stars. It’s always love. Love you can’t lose. And that’s far away, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know if I’ve ever had it,’ Elrond said.

‘No,’ Frodo said. ‘So that’s what you want. What I want. But it’s all very sad. And you have a ring on your finger I’ve never seen before. It’s one of the Three?’

‘Yes,’ Elrond said.

‘Is it heavy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it lonely?’

‘It can be.’

‘But you will love me?’

‘Yes.’

‘But I am mortal,’ Frodo said. ‘So you will lose me, like you’ve lost...’

‘So we can’t have what we want,’ Elrond said. ‘And such it is.’ But he paused, and his voice changed, it was much smaller now, full of things he should not say. ‘Sometimes I don’t believe it. I think, sometimes, that we will all meet again, the mortals who leave the world, the immortals, who stay with the world, but are meant to perish with it, which is not immortality, just a long life, that will fade. But I think that we may still meet after death, like we meet in my dreams. But dreams do not always come true.’

‘Sometimes they do,’ Frodo said. He held Elrond’s hand. He kissed his wrist again, kissed the side of his hand.

‘Not always.’

‘So everything is uncertain, but there are still things that are beautiful, that can’t be stolen, taken, hidden. The moon will never be a secret.’

Elrond smiled.

‘Thank God the moon is not a secret. That the stars are not. That clouds can hide them, but not forever.’

‘And the sun will set, and that will be golden,’ Frodo said.

‘It will be.’

‘And water will always flow, and be bright in the light, and more beautiful than gems.’

Elrond smiled.

‘And I love you,’ Frodo said.

‘And I you.’

‘And that’s enough right now.’

‘It is.’

Elrond tilted up Frodo’s face and kissed him. And it was darker now, but Elrond felt closer, still. He felt more real in the shadows, with his heart beating against Frodo’s ear.

‘Should I keep it a secret?’ Frodo said. ‘That you stole the Nauglamír.’

‘Yes,’ Elrond said. ‘Though I don’t think anyone would believe you. It is said to be lost.’

‘But it isn’t.’

‘No.’

‘So not all that is lost is lost.’ Frodo rested his hand against Elrond’s chest. ‘And that’s a comfort.’

‘I am glad.’ Elrond kissed the top of his head. ‘It is a beautiful thing, the Nauglamír, but it is marred with blood. Touched always by greed.’ Frodo closed his eyes. ‘But this memory will be untouched,’ Elrond said.

‘Even when I die?’ Frodo asked. ‘And we are forever parted?’

‘Maybe it is not so,’ Elrond said softly. ‘If I have the Nauglamír, lost that it is, there may be a way that my brother, my daughter, will still find me. A way that you will find me, find Gandalf. For where there is love, isn’t there always hope? Even a fool’s hope? Even a hope against all wisdom?’

‘You would know more than I,’ Frodo said.

‘What do you know?’

‘I know that if there is a god,’ Frodo said. ‘Who made such a world, and such people in it, who could love, who could marry, have children, bind themselves one to the other, who would look on that and say that it cannot be, for they must forever be parted, I wouldn’t worship that god, even if I was taken into the sky and forced to meet my very own maker. It would be too cruel. I could not love such a god.’

‘I suppose it is here that you can speak blasphemy,’ Elrond said. ‘I will not rebuke you. I said the same thing as a child, and my brother too. He promised to find me. It was his very last promise.’

‘Then he will find you,’ Frodo said. ‘Or the world itself will not be satisfied.’

‘I hoped,’ Elrond said, ‘that you would say such a thing. You are brave, and you are so full of love that I can feel it ache inside of you. I am not searching, my dear, for the piece of my soul. I love you. For you are searching always. I hope you find it, what you are looking for.’

‘And I wish that you will too,’ Frodo said. ‘And that you will not be forever torn. You can’t be forever torn. No one can live that way.’

‘But so I have lived,’ Elrond whispered.

Frodo could find no answer. He watched the stars. He reached for the blanket, and Elrond drew it around them both.

‘We’re so very high up,’ Frodo said.

‘High enough to keep a thousand secrets,’ Elrond said.

‘But you have more.’

Elrond kissed Frodo’s hair again.

‘I would not have you worry about my secrets. I wanted to share that one with you, for you do not covet gold, long for jewels, and you would not want to keep the Nauglamír. And you will risk your life for the world. And I love you.’

Frodo closed his eyes. He saw now the memory of the stars, and he breathed in the old scent of the air – the metal, the paper, the leather, the pain. He hoped that Elrond would not ask him why he would risk his life. He did not have an answer for himself, so he could not answer it for anyone. There was only the knowing that if he did not, if he did not try everything he could to save that which he loved, he could no longer love it in peace, but he did not know why he would take on the burden of the world. He only knew that he felt safe in the sky with Elrond and all his secrets.

**Author's Note:**

> I was like time to throw some elrond/frodo into the chaos of this world and life was like want to have an existential crisis with that? here's some philosophy and theology. discuss.


End file.
